Let's start with Jingle Bells. Yes, for the kiddies, it might be prudent to suggest that James Lord Pierpont wrote it "as a Thanksgiving tune." I'd accept that for Over the River and Through the Woods. That song was an 1854 endorsement of unchaperoned dating. "Go it while you're young, Take the girls tonight?" Riding with "Miss Fanny Bright." (The precocious tots probably grab the double-entendre!)
Next, let's go for a Sleigh Ride. That's a century newer than Jingle Bells, and snuggling "up together like birds of a feather" isn't as over-the-top as that Miss Fanny Bright was. Yes, the Mormons took the coffee out of that birthday party in this performance, but where do you suppose those legendary large Mormon families came from?
The third song, Sleigh Bell Serenade, came to my attention relatively recently. Sneaking a hug under that old bear rug, and maybe that's not Mormon cider being passed around on the hayride?
The sleigh rides are about the getting acquainted. Winter Wonderland is more explicit about the next steps. Parson Brown. "Are you married? No, man, but you can do the job when you're in town." Plus facing unafraid those plans they made.
Then come the more ambiguous tunes: the getting acquainted is not quite to the making plans. Consider Let It Snow. "As long as there's no place to go ..."
Let It Snow has that "All the way home, I'll be warm." There's no such resolution in the final tune of the play-list, Baby, It's Cold Outside.
Next, let's go for a Sleigh Ride. That's a century newer than Jingle Bells, and snuggling "up together like birds of a feather" isn't as over-the-top as that Miss Fanny Bright was. Yes, the Mormons took the coffee out of that birthday party in this performance, but where do you suppose those legendary large Mormon families came from?
The third song, Sleigh Bell Serenade, came to my attention relatively recently. Sneaking a hug under that old bear rug, and maybe that's not Mormon cider being passed around on the hayride?
The sleigh rides are about the getting acquainted. Winter Wonderland is more explicit about the next steps. Parson Brown. "Are you married? No, man, but you can do the job when you're in town." Plus facing unafraid those plans they made.
Then come the more ambiguous tunes: the getting acquainted is not quite to the making plans. Consider Let It Snow. "As long as there's no place to go ..."
Let It Snow has that "All the way home, I'll be warm." There's no such resolution in the final tune of the play-list, Baby, It's Cold Outside.
Well, that took a lot of convincing.
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